ABOUT ME

My name is Lily Kraft, I am a senior at the University of Michigan, and I grew up in Los Angeles, California. 

The inspiration for this project first developed during the peak of Covid-19. Sent home from my first year of college, I had 6 months to do virtually nothing at home. Beyond the occasional walk or drive, I spent all hours of the day within the boundaries of my address. It was then that I began to ponder what the space really meant to me. With nowhere else to go, trying to understand the experiences I had growing up in my home dominated my thinking. I became acutely aware of the way I behaved at home: cautiously and methodically. Was it because of how the home was designed? The dynamics of my family? Or, something else entirely?

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This project works to explore the idea of home. My essay offers insight into modern suburbs and the interviews following provide first-person context. The group of individuals I interviewed all come from similar socio-economic backgrounds and their admissions reveal a larger expectation about suburbia. As houses get bigger and interior design becomes more individually distinct, how does the home we grew up in affect the way we envision our future?

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